Negotiation between Cricket Australia and Australian Cricketers' Association seems to have gathered pace following week-long talks between the two parties. It has been three weeks since more than 230 professional cricketers have been unemployed following their decision to not sign the Memorandum of Understanding with the cricket board over issues of revenue sharing.

Further talks will reportedly resume on Monday after a week in which the two parties - CA led by James Sutherland and ACA led by Alistair Nicholson - managed to break the communication barrier through regular interactions. Even as neither parties have backed out of their respective stance, the optimism of a solution coming out soon emerges from the fact that talks that took months to begin, have finally started after public outcry. Also, according to reports, Nicholson is no more pursuing the need to have an independent mediator, with the two respective heads maintaining direct communication.

ACA executive member Neil Maxwell has also played an important role in brokering an agreement with the two parties. The former New South Wales pacer called in Mark Taylor and Neil Maxwell to facilitate better understanding between CA and ACA.

The negotiations between the two parties had stalled last year with both CA and ACA posing strong objection to the proposed revenue distribution of the other. The ACA has stonewalled any deviation from the exisiting revenue sharing model, which was drafter and agreed upon in 2012 - it also put forth its own version of the model, as per which players get a reduced share of 22.5 per cent (instead of 25 per cent) of the total payment pool. According to this model, however, the players will continue to get profits of the board's revenue.

Nonetheless, the recent meetings have also raised the prospect that the new five-year MoU will be agreed upon, which would mean that the agreed tour to Bangladesh might go ahead as planned next month. However, since there is no time frame for the prospective agreement between the two parties, there still remains uncertainty in the saga. Already the Australia A team has backed out of the tour to South Africa, and danger looms over the Ashes series and India tour as well.

Meanwhile, the Australian team playing in the ongoing women's world cup in England have signed an interim contract for the period of the tournament.